


c://dos/run/prog/iwastiredofmyoldlady

by Missy



Category: Escape (The Piña Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes (Song)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Cheating, Dark, F/M, Mind Games, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 23:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5517260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's saved Galaxies.  He's earned this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	c://dos/run/prog/iwastiredofmyoldlady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mtgat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtgat/gifts).



All-told, it was a fairly easy choice to make. Another man would fight his worst instincts and try to think of some queasy-minded reason for infidelity, but not him. He’d seen too much, been too many places, and done too many things to back down now.

The pivot-hinge that kept his morality in check had disintegrated long ago. Maybe it was when he’d helped frag his first enemy fighter and watched a man burn to death under his firepower. Or, perhaps, it was when he’d turned over a fleet of war orphans to an enemy nation just to earn his troops more firepower. He knew the score, and so did she – survival was the king. When he was younger, he’d tried to justify his needs; now it was an intern against the wall, a woman in a far-off port, a pleasure den in a galaxy that no person he knew in his daily life had ever been to. There was no need to explain, no _reason_ for his need to blow off some steam with a gorgeous woman who happened not to be his girlfriend. He was going to reach into the maw of his rotting relationship and pull the tooth that was his attraction to Edith – break the bone and shatter the claw. And it all started tonight.

“System,” he said to his green-glowing keyboard, “run program ‘women wanted’.” 

The computer stuttered for a second, a fresh pane popping up, filled with orange text scrolling down the screen at a heretofore unprecedented rate. By some miracle she hadn’t blocked the program – how refreshingly sporting of her. 

“Enter ad,” he said. The pane changed to a blank one. 

_Ready for orders_ , the computer’s voice module declared.

He leaned his chin against his palm and began, rather thoughtfully, “If you like pina coladas…”

&&&&&

He was blood-soaked and weary when he returned to the computer the next day. There were a number of offers to be fielded and rejected; in the end the only person who made his nerves sing was a blonde named Jenna from the Gamma-Ran quadrant in Alpha Centuari.

They messaged twice, agreeing to meet at a small bar in an out-of-the-way place. He found it easy to promise her this much – no names, and they would signal their mutual interest on approaching with the words “do you have half a brain?”

&&&&&

He didn’t know when he’d gotten tired of Edith. It had started out well between them – she was a top flyer who did work in the espionage field, and she knew how to please him. The sex was wild, then mild – he expected her to keep up with his volatile appetites, expected her to understand the hellfire pain that drove him. If he were an honest man he’d realize that he barely understood his own wants himself. It was easier to blame the closest person than jam a thumb into a festering wound. She wouldn’t understand, might even probably kill him somehow, but damn it, it was worth the chase, the thrill that teased his spine every single time he thought about stepping out.

The spider dance he’d fallen into with Edith seemed a thousand times less dangerous now. What had led them to let it carry things on for this long? Probably her looks, possibly her daring ways, possibly the fact that she knew a little too much about his covert missions. It was the lack of danger, he supposed, the dull-eyed normalcy of it all. She used to to keep him rock hard, replicate the life of danger he’d given his soul to out on the star field; now it was like holding hands with a nun.

&&&&&

He dressed in his best suit he had, his hair slicked back, hopped up on booze to keep his nerve up. In his hand was a bouquet of fresh roses and his hair was slicked back and to the side. In this low lighting he looked as dashing as he had in his twenties; almost as if time had reversed itself and graced him with the ability to seem handsome, upright and charming once again. In fact, he even felt as if he could win the attention of any girl sitting at the bar. They should bottle personal ads, he decided quietly. Bottle them up and just use them like cologne, and everyone would be running around getting laid…

“Do you have half a brain?”

The words made him drop his martini down the front of his suit. Sputtering, he turned to meet the dark eyes and angry glare of a too-familiar face.

“I never knew you liked pina coladas,” she said flatly.

“Edith!” He said overbrightly. “…You’re going to make me pay for this, aren’t you?”

“Total war,” she smiled. “Isn’t that what Elizabeth Taylor said? Whom you ALSO don’t remember that I like?”

The corner of his mouth crinkled, his eyes taking on a malevolent sheen. He had forgotten how intense she could be, how ravening.

Her red-lacquered fingers rose from the table – the hard-drive tucked between them. Her smile was sick and glorious as she leaned over to give him an ample glimpse at her cleavage before she pecked him once on the cheek with her poisoned lips. He could feel the real hurt in her kiss but also the hope. If she wanted him dead he’d already be bleeding on the ground.

The lips shifted northward, so they could better whisper into his ear. “Next time,” she hissed there, honey-sweet, “turn off the screen before leaving the comport device on, you complete fool.”

The slap to his jaw was feather light, threatening things to come, promises and things most terrifying. She jounced her way away from him and he followed every step. Just like that, he was rock hard and back in the hunt, thrilled to be next to her, wanting to be much more THAN just next to her. The magic was back. In fact, it was everywhere.

He had to admit, it was was one hell of a way to put life back into a relationship.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how this turned into a space AU, but I'm glad it did. Happy Yuletide!


End file.
